


Moon Prism Power

by 0bviousLeigh



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sailor Moon, blink-and-you'll-miss-it sharkbaitshipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-07-21 13:44:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7389304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0bviousLeigh/pseuds/0bviousLeigh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sailor Moon falls into a coma, only one person can take her place—her twin brother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moon Prism Power

**Author's Note:**

> This was a lot fluffier in my head. But I can't write about Ryoga without bringing in the angst.

Ryoga tugs on the embarrassingly short skirt and growls, “How the hell does Rio fight crime in this?”

“It never seems to bother her,” Astral says.

“That was rhetorical,” Ryoga snaps. He points the wand at the mess left from the goo-monster he just vanquished and commands it to be gone. Only half the mess vanishes, but he considers it good enough. He staggers into the alleyway to transform back into his normal clothes.

It’s a relief to be out of Rio’s uniform. Not for the first time, Ryoga wonders if he can make the skirt longer. He’s actually worn skirts before, it happened when you were involved in a social circle that bought into couture, but those skirts were usually longer. Ryoga’s not used to having so much leg on display. Or so much arm. Really, how does Rio’s uniform protect her from anything?

“Why can’t magical girls wear armor instead of short skirts?” Ryoga asks.

Astral shrugs. “I don’t make the rules.”

“Are you good for anything?” Ryoga asks.

Astral bristles. “I can tell you for sure, that monster has no connection to the one who hurt Rio.”

Ryoga kicks a lamp post. “Fantastic.”

 

Rio and Ryoga have no secrets. When Rio found the magical pendant that gave her the ability to transform into Sailor Moon, a fashionable crime fighter, Ryoga knew about it. When she met the other Sailor Scouts, she took them to the Kamishiro mansion to hang out. Whenever she had to go take down a monster, Ryoga would wait up for her to come home again. When Rio didn’t come home one night, it was Ryoga who went looking for her. He found a burning building and just barely managed to get Rio out of it before the whole thing came down. Ryoga barely had time to hide Rio’s pendant before the paramedics showed up.

At the hospital, Ryoga found out that Rio did have one secret she kept from him—the existence of Astral, her “magical advisor,” or something. Apparently, he could only be seen by those in ownership of the pendant, and when Ryoga took it from Rio, he became its owner.

That was four months ago. Rio’s burns are healing, her lungs are functioning again, but she’s still comatose. The other Sailor Scouts tried to manage without her, but they just couldn’t, and the pendant wouldn’t respond to anyone other than Rio—or, as it turned out, her twin brother. Since someone had to take Sailor Moon’s place, Ryoga has been living a dual life as a student and crime fighting magical boy.

The only reason Ryoga accepted the responsibility is to get revenge on whatever put his sister in a coma. Astral thinks that if the monster is destroyed, Rio will wake up. Until then, it maintains some kind of hold over her, preventing her from regaining consciousness. The other Sailor Scouts have promised Ryoga that if they find the monster first, they’ll let him know so he can come kill it.

Ryoga starts every day by visiting Rio. He has to put on scrubs and a surgical mask before he enters her room—she needs one more skin graft, and she can’t get sick.

“The mask almost came off last night,” Ryoga tells Rio. He may look a little like Rio from the back, but his face blows the entire cover out of the water. So he still wears a mask to keep people from seeing his face and guessing his true gender.

“I’m not sure which is more annoying, the mask or the skirt,” Ryoga continues. He takes out a homemade device that checks for hidden recording equipment and sweeps the room. There’s nothing hidden in Rio’s room.

Ryoga sits by Rio’s side and leans over her. “By the way, I scuffed your boots.” He thinks her face twitches a little bit, but she shows no signs of waking up.

Rio has another visitor today—Kotori, AKA Sailor Venus. She’s Rio’s best friend, and the only one of her friends Ryoga can kind of tolerate.

“Any changes?” Kotori asks.

Ryoga shakes his head. “Doctors say she’ll get the last skin graft tomorrow.”

Kotori winces and tears come to her eyes. “If she would only wake up…”

One transformation into Sailor Moon would heal her, Ryoga knows this, and it’s why he’s so pissed that he hasn’t been able to find the monster that did this to his sister.

“I’ve been looking, too,” Kotori says. “But a monster made of pure fire, it’s not easy to miss.”

“I know,” Ryoga says. “I’m checking a factory tonight.”

“Should I come with you?” Kotori asks.

Ryoga shakes his head. “You stay with Anna and patrol the city. Call me if anything happens.”

“I don’t like you going alone,” Kotori says sharply. “Rio went alone, and look what happened to her.”

“I don’t need any help,” Ryoga snaps. “I can take care of her alone.”

“That’s not what being a Sailor Scout is about,” Kotori says, “It’s about team work! That’s what Rio always says!”

Ryoga turns to Kotori and snarls, “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed this, but Rio’s not saying anything right now. And not sure if you’ve noticed this either—I’m not a Sailor Scout.”

Not wanting things to escalate further, Ryoga stalks out of the room before Kotori can retaliate. He considers skipping school, but knows the teachers would probably call social services on him if he did.

 

Ryoga ends up coming home with an unwanted guest—Tsukumo Yuma. He thinks Ryoga is his friend, for reasons unknown. Yuma has been following Ryoga around since middle school, nearly five years ago. Ryoga might consider Yuma a good friend, if he wasn’t so goddamn caring.

“C’mon, just one night!” Yuma pleads, hanging off of Ryoga’s arm. “You’ve been losing weight, I can tell, and my grandma makes the best food! There’s plenty to go around, I mean she feeds me with no problem, and I promise I won’t eat everything, I’ll even let you pick first!”

Ryoga shakes Yuma off, tossing his school bag aside. It’s not the first time Yuma’s been to his house, but it’s the first time he’s come over since Rio’s accident. Ryoga’s not sure if there’s any evidence of his crime fighting antics, but he’s determined not to let Yuma in past the foyer. He rings the bell for a butler, and turns to Yuma.

“Thank you for the invitation,” he says stiffly, “But I don’t think it’s possible.”

“It’s the weekend!” Yuma says. “And it’s just dinner, it’s only a few hours!”

But Ryoga needs those few hours to look for his sister’s attacker. “I can’t,” Ryoga says firmly.

“Why not?” Yuma asks.

“Because the hospital might call!” Ryoga invents. “I need to be…to be able to get to Rio!”

Yuma looks like he might start crying. “I understand that, but you won’t be any good to her if you pass out. Have you seen yourself lately? You look like…you look terrible.”

Ryoga can feel a headache coming on. He rings for the butler again. “Why do you care?”

“Because I’m your friend!” Yuma says.

Ryoga punches the wall. “Damn it, Yuma, I don’t need a friend right now, I need my sister back!”

Yuma falls silent. The butler finally arrives, and Ryoga mutters for him to escort Yuma out. When Yuma is gone, Ryoga goes upstairs and takes a look at himself in the bathroom mirror. His face does look thinner, and paler.

“That boy had a point,” Astral says, materializing over Ryoga’s shoulder.

“You’re creepy,” Ryoga says tiredly. He’s tired all the time.

“You spend too much time on the streets at night,” Astral says. “Even Rio was not so dedicated.”

Ryoga is back to being pissed. “Why does everyone compare my wellbeing to hers? I’m only doing this to save her life, after all. Rio wouldn’t do this, Rio does it like that. I bet you if I was in a coma, she would have already saved my life.”

“You don’t have to kill yourself to prove that,” Astral says.

“Shut up,” Ryoga tells him. “I’m taking a nap. Wake me in an hour.”

 

Ryoga chokes down a sandwich and slips out the door just as the sun is setting. The factory he’s investigating is a metal refinery, one that seems to always have smoke rising from it. It might just be the perfect spot for a fire demon to hide in. Ryoga’s been scouting the place for weeks, and he’s figured out how to sneak in. He times everything perfectly—the guards rotations, the trucks that pass—and sneaks past all the security cameras. He makes it the main floor, where the refinement happens, and is just about to pull the pendant from his back pocket when he hears a very familiar voice behind him.

“What are you doing?”

Ryoga jumps and turns around, coming face-to-face with Yuma.

“What are _you_ doing?!” Ryoga fires back.

“I was coming to check on you and saw you leave,” Yuma says, “I thought something was wrong with Rio so I followed you.”

“You followed me into this building?!” Ryoga screeches. He turns to Astral, who has been hovering by him this whole time. “Why didn’t you say something?!”

“I admit, I failed to notice him,” Astral admits.

“Well what good are you?” Ryoga asks.

Yuma looks absolutely terrified. “Ryoga, I think you should see a doctor. You’re sneaking into buildings, and talking to the air! I’m really worried about you.”

Ryoga grabs Yuma by the arm and hauls him behind a cart full of scrap metal. “I am fine,” he hisses, “You however, are about to blow my whole operation right out of the water, and you need to leave _right now_ before you put all three of us in danger!”

“Three?” Yuma asks, looking around.

Ryoga grips Yuma’s arm so tightly he knows it’ll bruise. “You, me, and Rio,” he snarls. “I’m doing this for her!”

“Let me help!” Yuma begs, twisting out of Ryoga’s grasp. “Rio is my friend, too!”

“This isn’t something you can help with!” Ryoga cries, and he’s about to go on, but suddenly he hears something—it sounds like fire crackling, but not a normal fire. It’s a very, very big fire.

Ryoga doesn’t think twice. He stands up, pulls out the pendant and yells, “Moon Prism Power, Make Up!” By the time the transformation is complete, the monster has revealed itself. It is a twenty-foot tall tower of orange and blue flame, black smoke rising all around it, and it is staring right at Ryoga and Yuma.

Ryoga grabs Yuma’s arm and jumps away, barely missing a jet of fire. He aims the wand at the creature and shoots a stream of pink bubbles at it. The bubbles brush the creature’s shoulder, and the fire goes grey where they pop against it. The creature screeches in pain and whirls around, but Ryoga is already hauling Yuma away. He shoves Yuma into a huge vat filled with water.

“Stay put!” Ryoga screams. He vaults away and fires another stream of bubbles at the monster, still dodging shots of fire. Very few of Ryoga’s attacks cause any harm, but those that do make the monster weaker, and make it possible for Ryoga to get closer. Somehow he knows if can land a shot into what seems to be the mouth of the beast, it will kill the thing.

“Ryoga!” Astral shouts suddenly, “You have to stop! The building is going to burn down!”

And the first thing Ryoga thinks is, ‘ _It’ll kill Yuma._ ’

Ryoga throws up a wall of water—the fire is burning too hot for it to kill the monster, but it’s enough to buy him some time. Ryoga runs back to the vat of water and finds Yuma still crouched in it. Ryoga grabs him by the shirt and hauls him up.

“Time to go!” Ryoga yells.

Together they run for the exit. The monster screeches behind them and Ryoga blindly aims his wand at it. Somehow Yuma ends up ahead of him. Ryoga runs as fast as he can but the stupid boots don’t fit him right. He trips, sees the ground coming at him, and everything goes black.

 

Ryoga knows he’s not dead, but he has no idea how he’s alive. His head is killing him, his feet are killing him, and he’s pretty sure Yuma is talking to Astral. At least, he thinks it’s their voices he’s hearing. To be sure he’d have to open his eyes, but he’s too tired for that.

“Ryoga?” Yuma calls softly. “Can you hear me?”

Ryoga nods, and groans when pain shoots through his head.

“Easy,” Yuma says, “You hit your head pretty hard. Your pal says you need your pin thing?”

“Pendant,” Ryoga mutters.

Yuma takes Ryoga’s hand, and Ryoga feels the pendant being pressed into his palm. He tightens his grip on it.

“Moon prism power…make up,” Ryoga mutters.

The transformation sends a jolt through him—painful at first, but it’s gone in a flash, and Ryoga’s head stops hurting. He opens his eyes and sits up. He’s back home, in his own bed. Yuma is sitting beside him, and Astral is floating above him.

Ryoga turns to Yuma. “How did we get out of the building?”

“I carried you,” Yuma says. “I climb up sheer cliffs for fun, I’m pretty strong, you know.”

Ryoga turns to Astral. “How can he see you?”

“The pendant,” Astral says. “It’s not bonded with Yuma the way it is to you and Rio, but Yuma held on to it while he carried you home, and the pendant must have deemed him trustworthy.”

Yuma shakes his head. “Jewelry with a mind of its own. If I wasn’t sitting next to an alien I wouldn’t believe it.”

Ryoga spied a glass of water on his bedside table and downs it, nearly choking in his haste. When he catches his breath he asks Astral, “Is the thing dead?”

Astral shakes his head. Ryoga throws the empty glass at the wall and it shatters. Yuma yelps, but Ryoga pays him no attention.

“You wounded it,” Astral says. “It’s weak now.”

“SHUT UP!” Ryoga screams, hands over his ears. “SHUT UP, JUST SHUT UP FOR ONCE!”

But the silence is worse, because it makes Ryoga’s sobs sound twice as loud, and he can’t seem to hold them in. He hasn’t cried since he first saw Rio in the hospital. Yuma pulls Ryoga towards him. Ryoga falls forward, his head on Yuma’s shoulder. Yuma hugs him and rubs his back.

“You’re not alone in this,” Yuma says. “It’s okay to need help.”

“Th-that thing almost killed R-Rio,” Ryoga sobs, “I have to k-kill it for her, and I can’t let it…let it take her friends.”

“And how do you think she’d feel if you died for her?” Yuma asks sharply. “If I hadn’t been there, you’d be dead.”

Ryoga sits up and yells, “I’m supposed to be enough! I’m supposed to protect her, I promised her I’d always be there for her!”

“And who is protecting you?” Yuma fires back. “One person can’t do everything, that’s not how the world works!”

Ryoga shoves Yuma weakly. “Now you sound like her.”

“I know,” Yuma says, “Someone has to be Rio for you, since she’s not here to do it herself.”

It’s so absurd, but it makes perfect sense, and Ryoga can’t help but laugh. Soon Yuma is laughing with him, and they laugh so hard they cry, and then they’re just crying, both of them sobbing that they miss Rio, and they end up hugging again. Ryoga hasn’t been hugged this much in months, and he’s not sure if he likes it or not, but eventually Yuma lets him go. Before Ryoga can be grateful for it, Yuma looks away with a blush on his cheeks.

“Your skirt is a bit messed up,” Yuma says, keeping his eyes averted.

Ryoga shoves Yuma bodily from the room and doesn’t let him back in until he’s changed into pants, a shirt, and wrapped himself up in a blanket.

“So, what happens now?” Yuma asks, blush still on his cheeks.

Astral answers, “Now Ryoga will sleep, eat something, and recover from his head wound. The transformation helped, but he still needs rest if he hopes to defeat that beast.”

Yuma nods, fixing Ryoga with a steely-eyed look. “I’m going to go down stairs and make you something to eat, you stay put. If you attempt to sneak away, I will pull you back here by your hair and sit on you to make you stay.”

Ryoga frowns. “That sounds like something your sister would say.”

“She may or may not have threatened me with that same fate,” Yuma says. 

So Ryoga rests for twenty four hours, the longest he’s done so since Rio’s accident. Yuma is by his side the entire time, making sure he doesn’t do anything too strenuous. He reminds Ryoga of Rio in some ways, which only makes Ryoga miss her even more. He doesn’t want to cry over her anymore, and he tries to keep a lid on those feelings.

Yuma wakes Ryoga from a nap and tells him he was yelling for Rio in his sleep. “Were you having a nightmare?”

“He has them frequently,” Astral tells Yuma.

“You stay out of this,” Ryoga says, his voice shaking.

Yuma lays down next to Ryoga and holds his hand. “We’re going to get her back, I’ll help you.”

Ryoga’s too tired to argue. He lets Yuma cuddle him, telling himself it’s so Yuma feels like he’s helping, but he can’t lie to himself for long. As he drifts off to sleep, he swears he feels Yuma kiss his forehead.

 

Even when Ryoga is healed enough to go back out and look for the fire demon, he can’t convince Yuma to stay back. They argue about it as Ryoga gets ready to leave the house.

“It almost killed you once before,” Ryoga reminds Yuma.

“When you fought it alone,” Yuma says. “You won’t be alone this time.”

“You don’t count,” Ryoga says.

“I wasn’t talking about myself,” Yuma says.

Before Ryoga can ask what he means, his bedroom window suddenly flies open and in sails Anna and Kotori, riding on Anna’s flying skateboard.

“Heard you nearly died last night,” Anna says, smacking Ryoga upside the head. “Idiot.”

Ryoga glares at Yuma. “Did you call them?”

“Astral helped me,” Yuma says quickly.

“They are Sailor Scouts, too,” Astral says. “They can help. They are supposed to help.”

Kotori nods. “It’s like I said before, Rio is our friend too.”

“And you need back up, you wimp,” Anna says.

Ryoga grits his teeth.

Yuma puts his hand on Ryoga’s shoulder. “Asking for help doesn’t mean you’re failing to take care of Rio.”

Ryoga throws up his hands. “Fine, let’s go see if we can find it.”

Maybe the demon won’t show up tonight.

But of course, the demon does show up, in the worst way possible. They find it at the pier, getting dangerously close to an oil tanker.

“TASTE BUBBLES, MONSTER!” Anna screeches as she swoops down on the monster, covering it in a layer of bubbles.

The monster howls and staggers back, but Kotori is ready. From the ground, she fires her own stream of bubbles and hits the monster’s foot, making it stagger away from the ships docked in the harbor.

“Get it to open its mouth!” Ryoga yells.

“IT IS OPEN!” Anna yells back.

“Open and facing me!” Ryoga tells her.

Anna spews a stream of curses, and Astral starts yelling, and Kotori is yelling, and Ryoga can barely concentrate.

“This is impossible!” Ryoga yells. He has no idea how he’s supposed to kill this thing without making the oil tanker explode.

“Work together!” Yuma yells. “You need to corner it against the bay!”

“But the water isn’t enough to kill it!” Ryoga says.

“Maybe not, but it will sure hurt it!” Yuma says, “Use your brains!”

“It’s a good plan!” Kotori says. “Ryoga, we have to try!”

“Okay, fine!” Ryoga cries. He turns to Yuma. “You stay put, keep out of trouble.” Yuma looks ready to argue, so Ryoga adds, “Please, I don’t want you to get hurt, too.”

Yuma backs down with a nod. “Be careful, okay?”

Ryoga doesn’t make promises he can’t keep, so he simply says, “I’ll try.”

The three Sailor Scouts position themselves around the monster, using bubbles and jets of water to herd it towards the bay. Fires spring up wherever the demon’s feet touch anything that’s not concrete, and Kotori does her best to put them out. After what feels like hours, they chase the beast into the bay. It lets out a loud screech and Ryoga shoots a stream of bubbles at its mouth. He misses.

“Let us help you!” Kotori begs.

“Fine!” Ryoga says, “I’ll shoot it, you two aim for its mouth!”

It takes three more tries, and Anna’s skirt catches fire, but one of them finally gets the beast in the mouth. With a final scream, the monster goes up in smoke.

Ryoga collapses on the shore. “It’s gone,” he pants, his vision swimming. “It’s dead.”

Ryoga hears Yuma shouting his name and he turns around. Yuma runs at him and envelopes him in a hug. “You did it, you all did! We have to go see Rio!”

“Can we change first?” Anna asks, patting the singed remains of her skirt. “I don’t think we’re dressed appropriately for the hospital.”

 

Ryoga goes into Rio’s room first. The doctors called him as the group was on their way to the hospital to tell him that Rio had woken up, and she was asking for him. Ryoga holds her pendant in his hand as he walks into her room, but he wonders if she’ll remember it. He’s not sure what will happen if she doesn’t.

Rio lies still with her eyes closed. Ryoga calls her name softly, and she opens her eyes and turns to him.

“Ryoga?”

“It’s me,” Ryoga says, his heart pounding. “Can you see me?”

“Kind of,” Rio says. She holds out her arm. “How long have I been here?”

Ryoga sits next to her and puts her pendant in her hand. “Remember this?” He asks, avoiding the question.

“My pendant,” Rio says, “You found it!”

“If you use it now, I think it’ll help you,” Ryoga tells her. His heart is pounding.

Rio grips the pendant tightly. “Can you say it with me?”

Ryoga holds her hand. Together they chant, “Moon Prism Power, Make Up!”

Ryoga isn’t expecting the transformation to affect him too, but it does. He and Rio are both covered in a bright light, and when it fades they both wear the Sailor Moon uniform. But it’s done what they hoped—Rio no longer has any burns on her body.

Rio giggles and smiles at Ryoga. “The uniform looks good on you.”

Ryoga starts to laugh and cry at the same time. “You can keep it, Rio, it looks better on you.”

Rio hugs her brother tightly. “What did I miss?” She asks.

Ryoga turns around and beckons Yuma, Anna, and Kotori in. “I need a little help filling you in on that.”

 

 

**Two months later**

 

“So, Sailor Moon is back in action?” Yuma asks. He and Ryoga are in the Kamishiro mansion, watching TV and eating popcorn.

Ryoga nods. “Yeah, but I made Rio promise me she wouldn’t go into abandoned building alone again.”

Yuma nods and clears his throat. “And um…every time she becomes Sailor Moon…this happens?” He gestures at Ryoga.

Ryoga sighs and tugs on the skirt. “Yep. Astral says he doesn’t know how to make it stop.” There aren’t supposed to be two Sailor Moons, but whenever Rio activates her pendant, Ryoga gets swallowed up by a yellow light and his outfit becomes a skirt, white boots, and a tank top.

Yuma clears his throat. “You know…it looks good on you.”

Ryoga turns bright red and throws a handful of popcorn at Yuma’s head. “Shut up or I’m calling this date off.”

But Yuma has a point, the uniform does look pretty good on him.

**Author's Note:**

> follow up story now up! Read it here : http://archiveofourown.org/works/7421182


End file.
